


Wanted: Dead and Alive

by VintagePoison



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood Magic, Gen, Hell, Hellhounds, Humor, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reincarnation, Resurrection, Revenge, Undead, Undecided Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1671308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VintagePoison/pseuds/VintagePoison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some people that you don't make angry. Those are the people that will kill you and then bring you back from the dead so they can kill you again. Multiple times.</p><p>The problem is that saving someone in that situation is a lot more complicated than just ganking the right bad guy...</p><p>(Warning: there will be original characters.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dead is the New Alive

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, this is me trying to write a Supernatural fanfic...
> 
> I will try my very best to keep everyone in character but I haven't seen season 9 yet so I'm just sort of winging it in some places.

The first time they met, she was already dead. The horror of the night before had finally passed. It'd ended sometime around four a.m. when her legs had finally collapsed from under her and she’d gone sprawling. She’d cursed the stupid cabin and she’d cried from pain and exhaustion. She had reflected bitterly that perhaps she should have just stayed home this weekend, but they’d said that a few days off wouldn’t kill her. Boy, were they wrong, she had thought bitterly.

Those had been her last thoughts. Well, her last thoughts that weren’t incoherent pain as she was ripped apart by sharp teeth and claws. Hikers had found her early the next morning and the police had carted the body off to the medical examiner. Now, she was lying in one of the morgue drawers, zipped up in a body bag like yesterday’s left-overs.

It was a little after lunch when the two men from the FBI—Agents Grohl and Ulrich—showed up asking to see the bodies from the recent maulings. It was a bit of an odd request, but it was even odder to see feds in Arline, Texas; no one argued. Not even the medical examiner, the perpetually sour Dr. Bennett.

“You boys squeamish?” he asked, leading the way to the drawers.

“Nah, we’re good,” replied the green eyed man, hands in his pocket and bouncing on his heels slightly. He had a very impatient air to him at the moment; he had other things he wanted to be doing. Like checking out that strip club that was advertising free Buffalo wings with every second lap dance.

“We should be okay, thanks,” said the tall one with a hint of a grimace at his partner’s behavior.

“Suit yourself,” Dr. Bennett snorted, yanking open one of the doors and tugging the drawer so it’d roll out. The body bag lay on the drawer in a vaguely human shape lump of odor fighting storage. He did the same on another freezer door, revealing the second body bag. “Charts,” he said, thrusting them at the tall one. “Call me if you need anything,” he said, already walking away.

After his footsteps had faded away and there had been a sufficiently long silence, the green eyed man snorted. “Wow, I almost forgot how lax the security is in small town morgues,” he commented, grabbing a pair of latex gloves and snapping them on. He gave one of the zippers a tug and winced at the mauled visage revealed by the parting bag. “Guess he’s not winning any beauty contests anytime soon,” he said.

“Dean, I know you’re bored, but could you try to be a little more professional when we’re pretending to be FBI?” sighed the tall one. He took a pair of gloves and grimaced; they never seemed to have the large ones just lying around. Hopefully, they’d be done before he lost circulation in his fingers. He unzipped the other bag, revealing the woman inside. “I’m going to take a guess and say this one is Kelly Branson and your’s Mark Pond,” he commented.

“Well, I’m pretty sure the heart’s gone on mine,” Dean said, eyeing the bloody mess that was the torn up chest cavity of the dead man. “What about yours?”

“Uh…” said his partner, flipping through the chart quickly. “They haven’t done much more than the preliminary exam, but yeah. Looks like it’s gone.”

Dean smiled. “Excellent,” he said, grabbing the zipper and yanking it closed with a practiced yank. “So we go gank the wolf and then I get to go eat Buffalo wings and get some love and attention.”

“I don’t think it counts as love and attention if you pay for it,” his partner said dryly, zipping the other bag closed carefully. He took the latex gloves off, shoving them in his pocket unthinkingly.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you do that?” Dean asked.

“Do what?” Sam asked blankly.

“Shove the doctor gloves in your pocket when you’re done with them,” Dean said, nodding at Sam’s pocket. It was something he’d noticed, yet he’d never seen the gloves in the trash at the motel or in the wash. He pulled off his own gloves, crumpling them up and throwing them in the trash can.

“I don’t know,” Sam shrugged. “Leaves less DNA?”

Dean considered this for a moment. That was actually a pretty good point. DNA evidence was such a pain in the ass sometimes. It was hard not to leave any even if you tried your very hardest. He looked at the trash can and then shrugged. “Makes sense, I guess,” he conceded. “We going?”

“Yeah,” Sam replied, pushing the bodies back into the freezer and closing their doors.

And with that they left. The two bodies lay within the freezer for a while. Then there was only one.

 

The second time they met each other, they were faces in a crowd. It had been two months since they had visited the morgue in Arline, Texas where she had lain dead. Not that she remembered that. Her somewhat blurry memory of two months ago involved a bad break-up, moving trucks and lots of tequila. But vacation was over and it was back to work she went.

“Hey, Amelia! Can you grab table six for me?”

It was a little after seven p.m. and the dinner rush was unusually strong tonight. Rudy’s Family Diner in Harrington, Delaware was a local hot spot if you were craving a good burger. Amelia wasn’t a huge fan of burgers. For some reason, she had lately started feeling vaguely uneasy whenever she tried to eat meat. Like she could feel the cow glaring at her with the accusation that she of all people should know better.

Maybe it was just the worry from people disappearing getting to her, she thought as she grabbed the menus and headed to table six. “Hi, welcome to Rudy’s, can I get you started with something to drink?” she recited, giving the two men a bright smile as she handed them their menus. People sometimes told her she had a nice smile, so she tried to use it often.

“Coke,” said the one with green eyes, shooting her a crooked grin that probably got him laid with some regularity. “And a cheeseburger. Big one,” he said, grabbing the air in front of him for emphasis. “With bacon on it.”

“Alright, and for you?” she said, turning to the other one. He was hella tall, she noted, and cute in a scruffy puppy kind of way. His friend could have taken notes and saved money on that leather jacket, she thought with a private chuckle.

“Uh… Iced tea and a chef’s salad?” the big one said, looking mildly flustered at being put on the spot.

“What kind of dressing?” Amelia asked, scribbling down the burger, drinks and salad. “We’ve got ranch, fat-free ranch, honey mustard, Italian, balsamic—“ she listed, looking up at the ceiling as she tried to remember them all. She was still learning; she’d only been at this job a month.

“Just a little balsamic on the side would be great,” the man interrupted with an apologetic smile that was probably his normal expression if she had to guess.

Amelia gave a nod and headed back to the kitchen. “Burger, chef salad with balsamic on the side!” she yelled, sticking the ticket on the wheel with the others. There was a good-natured explosion of profanity from Cook to indicate that the order had been received. She slid over to the drink station, grabbing two of the cups and humming slightly as she filled them.

When she headed back to table six, the two men were talking rather intently, but they stopped when she got near and gave them the drinks. That turned out to be a precedent for the rest of the meal. Whenever she came close, they hushed up. Which Amelia supposed she was fine with; it was probably better than being stuck listening to some crazy rant.

By the time they finished their meal and paid their bill, things had died down. Amelia even found herself bored for a brief moment. The moment was brief, however, because she made the mistake of commenting about it to Cook, who made her take out the trash.

“I should learn to keep my big mouth shut,” she grumbled to herself, spinning slightly to hurtle the big black bag into the open dumpster. It clanked against the metal rim of the dumpster and then disappeared into the dark interior.

Amelia wiped her hands on her jeans absently and turned to head back to the diner. She nearly smacked right into Caleb, who was standing not two inches away. She jumped back. For a momentm she almost tripped.

“Jesus, Caleb!” she said, giving a shaky laugh as she regained her balance. “Make some fucking noise when you walk, alright?” she added jokingly, trying to get her heart rate down. Caleb was one of the regulars; he tended to come in late in the evenings to meet with friends. He was a little spooky, but he was alright according to the other waitresses. He had a wife and a new born kid, if Amelia remembered right.

“I-I need your help,” Caleb said, staring at her with wide eyes. He wasn’t making eye contact. He was actually staring at her neck just below her ear with a rather unnerving intensity. Amelia couldn’t help a reflexive step back.

“Please, you’ve got to help me,” Caleb insisted, stepping forward and making a grab for her hand. His teeth seemed… sharper than she remembered. This was weird even for his normal quirkiness.

“I’m working,” Amelia said, a million warning bells going off in her head. Something creepy was happening and she was two seconds from screaming for help. “It’ll have to wait,” she said, her back bumping into the dumpster.

Suddenly, his hand was around her neck and her feet were a good three inches above the ground. Amelia managed a strangled yelp, but the pressure on her throat meant that it was too quiet to be heard. His grip tightened at the noise, pressing her windpipe closed; she had lost her chance to scream for help. She could smell something metallic and rotten on Caleb’s breath.

Blood, she realized weakly as the world started to spin from lack of air. The smell was blood. “I’m sorry,” she heard him saying as she began to fade from consciousness. “But the baby is hungry.”

 

The sound of a baby crying and people arguing jarred Amelia awake. The waitress’s head throbbed strangely, like something heavy was crushing her head despite nothing being near it. Amelia’s eyes opened slightly and she stared blankly at the people walking on the ceiling. Oh, no, wait, they were on the floor. She was the one on the ceiling, she realized.

She was in… some basement or warehouse or something, she couldn’t tell exactly what. Thinking was a lot more of a painful process when you were suspended upside down by your ankles with your hands tied behind your back. Wasn’t this how people got brain damage? she wondered.

Caleb and a woman were arguing, Amelia observed as she tried to focus. He was holding a small child, who was wailing with all the power in its tiny lungs despite Caleb’s attempts to calm it down. The woman’s irate tirade did not seem to be helping.

“I told you to fucking wait to turn me until _after_ I had the baby, but no, you thought you’d be cute and slip some blood in my wine on our anniversary,” she was ranting as she strode over to a bucket and grabbed it.

Bucket? Amelia thought blearily. What was that for?

“Selene, please stop shrieking; you’re upsetting Georgie,” Caleb said tersely.

The woman called Selene—Caleb’s wife, Amelia assumed—strode over to their upside down prisoner and put the bucket down with an angry clatter. Amelia craned her neck to see inside. Baby bottles, a towel… and a very large knife.

Oh. Oh shit.

“Georgie is going to be a baby _forever_ ,” Selene said angrily, taking out the bottles and towel. She put them aside and then grabbed the knife, pushing the bucket directly under Amelia. “Kids are supposed to grow up some day so you don’t have to do stuff like this!” she snapped, shooting her husband a glare as she grabbed a hand full of Amelia’s short brown hair to hold her still.

Amelia squeezed her eyes shut, praying to anyone who’d listen that someone would save her. She felt the blade press against her throat and swallowed, tears leaking out the corners of her eyes.

“Now wait a minute,” Caleb said and, for a split second, Amelia thought he was going to tell Selene to put down the knife. For a brief moment, she thought that rescue had come from the most unlikely place of all. Instead, he said, “You sure you want to do that wearing that shirt?”

Selene gave an angry growl and pain tore across Amelia’s throat. She felt the warmth leaking out of her in wet ooze down her cheeks and the sound of water dribbling into the bucket. No, not water. Blood. Hers. The thought barely had time to register before nothingness swallowed her.

 

The vampire nest in Harrington hadn’t been too hard to find once you got an idea of where to look. It had been pretty standard, aside from the undead monster baby. Apparently, vampire infants didn’t have teeth, which meant that mommy and daddy had to find people to bleed out to fill the bottles.

“Well, now we know that happens when you turn a pregnant woman into a vampire?” Dean managed, eying the bodies of the dead vamps with more than a little nausea in his expression. Three full-sized and one tiny one, all without their heads.

“Well, mother and child do share blood while a baby is in the womb, so…” Sam trailed off. Neither of them really wanted to think about it that much. It was all vaguely squicky. The fairly fresh corpse hanging upside down from the cellar roof with the bucket of fresh blood didn’t help.

“You know, I think that’s the waitress from the diner?” Dean commented.

They both looked at the body. She’d been dead an hour, maybe a little longer. Their expressions barely flickered; this had happened too many times before for it to truly affect. It was just one more person that they’d been a little too late to save.

“Did you leave her a good tip?”

“Five bucks, I think?”

“On a twenty dollar bill?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not too bad.”

They both looked at her a little longer.

“Talk about a crap way to go. Fed to a vampire baby.”

“Yeah. But at least they cut her throat. Probably bled out pretty fast and didn’t know what had happened.”

“Yeah.”

They turned and left. They would remember her for the next few days, feel guilty, and swear that next time they would kill the baddies before innocents were hurt. But it was a more of a ritual to assuage their guilt than an oath of vengeance. It didn’t change the fact that the third time they met, they had arrived too late.

 

Resurrection magic was tricky by nature. For one thing, there were millions of variations on raising the dead; every culture had at least two myths about it and that very quickly added up. There were a few universal themes, however. The most easily spotted was that resurrecting a loved one never ended well; it always ended in tears. However, bringing back an enemy was another story all together.

The first moments of being alive again were a special kind of torture. All the memories hit her at once like a tidal wave in monsoon season. That alone was enough to make a person scream. And then you had the physical pain as her body rebuilt itself again from whatever scraps had survived her ordeal. This time was almost pleasant in comparison to some of the others; it had been a long time she’d had recovered from something as simple as being bled out.

 “Well, that was anti-climactic, don’t you think, dear?”

Not “dear”. Her name was... Regan? No, that wasn’t her name; it was someone else’s. Something with an N? Or  was it an M? She was losing track of which name was her original one. So many names. Amelia, Catherine, Kelly, Jasmine… The names she wore when she died threatened to smother her own with their mass.

“When I heard vampire baby, I surely thought they’d make you last for days on end,” commented her punisher. The dark haired woman sighed, shaking her head in disappointment at how careless vampires were these days. Quick deaths were wasteful in this situation.

The no longer dead young woman waited. She knew that all she could do—wait to be told how she would die next. It wasn’t worth it to interrupt. The fact she couldn’t thanks to slowly mending laceration on her throat was just a side note. She used to howl and growl when she couldn’t form words. There wasn’t a point anymore.

“Oh well. I heard that there was wendigo lurking about in Wisconsin.”

Oh god. Not another wendigo. Sometimes they stored their food for days before eating it. You never knew if you’d be devoured then, in five minutes, or five days. The uncertainty was almost worse than the dying part. Experience was a cruel teacher in this arena.

And the worst part? She wouldn’t remember to be afraid until it was too late.

“You’re going to be Leila this time. Try not to give up and die too quickly this time.”

 

Leila was numb. She had been here for days. There had been six of them at one point. Now there were two--herself and the girl Chasity. If help had been going to come, it would have been here by now. Someone would have found them. But no one was coming. The next time the creature came, there’d only be one.

 “L-Lelia?”

She looked up at hearing her name. Chasity was sitting across from her, twisting the hem of her shirt in agitation. The teenager was about to cry again, she observed dully. Wonderful. “Yeah?”

“Do you think my parents think I’m dead?”

Oh lord. What sort of question was that? Leila sighed, rubbing her eyes. “They probably think that you and your boyfriend are holed up in some motel with your cell phones off,” she said.

“Oh.”

A moment of silence settled on the cage. Please don’t ask the question, please don’t ask the question, the woman prayed quietly. But she could see if in Chasity’s eyes. That horrible realization that they couldn’t rely on the gamble that the monster would grab someone else this next time. It was a coin flip who would die. And the coin was in the air, spinning with no indication of when or how it would fall.

“No one is going to save us, are they?” Chasity whispered.

Leila couldn’t bring herself to say the words aloud, but her silence said enough. Chasity’s head dropped to her knees and she started to shake with the effort not to cry.

Leila took a deep breath. “When the creature comes, I want you to run to the far corner of the cage. Away from the entrance. Got it?” The words tasted like ash in her mouth. Why the hell was she doing this? They would both die. The question was what order.

“But he’ll eat you…”

“Yeah.”

The silence that followed was the worst possible thing she could have imagined. It was suicide. They both knew it. There wasn’t even the excuse that she was buying time for the kid. In some ways, making Chasity die last was probably worse than letting the creature eat her first.

“You’re a good person,” Chasity whispered, voice so quiet that Leila almost didn’t hear her.

Oh god, now that made things a thousand times worse. Leila’s insides twisted inside her guilty and she stared wordlessly at the teenager, trying to tell if this was some form of gallows humor. Chasity looked back, her blue eyes meeting Leila’s brown.

The stupid girl still had hope that someone would save them, Leila realized. It was a delusional, unrealistic hope, but it was there in that horribly sincere gaze. For a moment she felt that she should explain exactly how bad their situation was. But then again, if the girl hadn’t figured it out by now, chances were that there was nothing Leila could say to educate her.

Leila opted for looking away and rubbing her eyes. Soon it would be all over, she told herself. The wendigo would come, she’d be killed and eaten, but there’d be no more waiting for rescue that would never come.

“Hello?”

“I’m right here, Chasity. You don’t have to call for me.”

Chasity frowned. “That totally wasn’t me,” she said, getting to her feet.

“Hello, anyone down here?” came another call. It wasn’t either one of them. It was a man’s voice.

They both stared at each other for a second as this registered. Then they both ran to the bars. “We’re down here!” Chasity screamed, gripping the bars tightly. The hope that had flickered in her eyes now lit up her entire face.

“Are you fucking insane?” Leila yelled, grabbing the teen and shoving her away from the bars. “Get away from the door! That thing imitates voices, remember!” she snapped, heart hammering in her chest. This was it. The creature was coming.

Light--blinding, bright, white light--suddenly shone from down the hall. A flashlight? Why did the monster have a flash light? Leila thought in bewilderment.

“We’re saved!” Chasity screeched happily, running back to the bars. “We’re in here!”

“Hiya, ladies.”

Leila stared at the two men who were approaching. They looked… vaguely familiar? She couldn’t pinpoint why, but she had a strange sense of deja vu. Maybe she’d seen them at work? Probably not, she thought as she eyed their scruffy appearance.

The flashlight was suddenly aimed directly at her face. Leila’s eyes instantly watered, unadjusted to the brightness. “Dude, doesn’t she look kinda familiar?” said one of the men.

“It’s rude to shine lights in people’s faces,” Leila snapped, eyes scrunched closed against the burning light. “You guys going to save us or not?”

The light moved and she heard the sound of a lock breaking. She opened her eyes just as Chasity shoved her aside, sprinting over to their rescuers and grabbing one in a grateful hug. The teenager was already blubbering over how thankful she was to be saved.

Leila glanced at the man with the flashlight, who was glaring at her suspiciously. The other man seemed to notice too.

“Dean,” he said, his voice warning and concerned.

“You look really familiar,” said the one with the flashlight, his tone accusatory.

“I hear that a lot,” Leila said dryly. She just had one of those faces, she guessed. “Look, can we just get out of here before that thing comes back?”

The fourth time they met, one of them suspected something was wrong.

 

“I’m home!” she called, pushing open the door to the apartment.

There was the sound of something breaking in the kitchen. “You fucking bitch!” yelled Annabelle, storming out of the kitchen. She seemed a lot less happy than Leila had thought she’d be given she’d been gone for days without explanation. “You--”

Leila suddenly found herself hurled across the room and slammed into the wall. Stars danced in front of her vision and her mind reeled. What the hell had just--

“--fucking--”

She was sent crashing into the bookcase this time. She heard a faint pop and pain exploded in her ribs, making her scream slightly whenever one of the tumbling books even brushed against her. She looked up at her roommate in bewilderment.

“--bitch,” Annabelle snarled, grabbing her by the throat. “You’re not supposed to get rescued,” she spat, nails digging into the other woman’s neck. “You’re not allowed to get rescued,” she hissed, ignoring the whimper of pain and confusion. “You of all people don’t deserve to get rescued.”

“I c-can’t breathe,” Leila wheezed, the room spinning. She could feel the blood trickling down her neck from Annabelle’s nails. What the hell was happening? Had the whole world gone crazy.

“Good!” yelled Annabelle, grabbing a handful of her hair and yanking her head back. Making it even harder to breath. “You deserve to choke, you piece of shit whore! Remember, dear?”

The word remember reverberated with power, vibrating in the air and inside the choking woman’s mind. And then the memories hit, grabbing her and throwing her psyche around like a doll in a hurricane. Her lips parted in a strangled scream as Leila drowned in the memory of other lives and other people.

The woman called Annabelle laughed. “But, since you’re home early, I guess we’re going to do this the old fashion way,” she said, a knife flying from the kitchen to her hand. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, dear?” she cooed, pressing the blade to the wide-eyed woman’s cheek.

She--Leila, Amelia, Bethany, whatever her name was--was shaking. Her mind reeling. But through the fog of her whirling thoughts and pain, she remembered one thing. It didn’t matter what she said. She was still going to die. The only acceptable answer was screaming.

The doors and windows to the apartment snapped closed with the solid thump of a coffin lid. Annabelle smiled. “Then let’s begin.”

 

“I’m telling you, Sammy,” Dean said doggedly, leaning against the Impala. “That chick looked exactly like the waitress from Harrington who got eaten by the vamps.”

“Dean, it’s possible for people to look similar without there being hoodoo involved,” Sam groaned, loading the last of the supplies into the trunk. They were going to be on the road a few days so it was necessary to refresh Dean’s stash of jerky and make sure they had drinks in the cooler. “It’s called genetics,” he said, grabbing a couple of beers and shutting the trunk.

Dean made a noise indicating he wasn’t convinced nor did he appreciate the snark. He was trying to be serious. “Dude, my spidey-senses were going crazy,” he said. “Something weird was going on there.”

Sam snorted, sitting down on the hood next to his brother. “Well, if we run into her again, you can ask her,” he said, offering him a beer.

Dean took the brew, popping the cap off with his thumb. “Bitch,” he grumbled.

“Jerk.”


	2. Wish I Had an Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, where I got to show off my knowledge of obscure Mesopotamian spirits and play with the concept that Enochian (the language of angels) is used in spellwork. Any comments you all might have on might writing are greatly appreciated!

“Castiel.”

No answer.

“Castiel!”

Still no answer.

“Castiellllll.”

Nothing.

“Cast--you know what, I give up. Your turn.”

“Hey, Cas!”

The angel appeared in the motel room, his trenchcoat muddy and his expression simultaneously exasperated and deadpan. He glanced between the two hunters. Dean had pulled up a chair next to the bed where Sam had spread out his notes and laptop and was nursing a beer. Upon the angel’s arrival, Dean grinned and stuck out an open palm towards his brother.

It had been two months since their trip to Wisconsin to kill the wendigo; it was nothing more to them now than another place where they had killed another monster. Anything strange about the trip had been forgotten in favor of more pressing matters. Like proving that Castiel always gave priority to when Dean called over when Sam called.

Sam sighed, drumming his pen against his shoulder. “How much was it?” he said dryly, grabbing his wallet from the bedside table.

“Twenty, now fork it up, loser,” Dean laughed, still holding out his hand. Sam slapped the money into his palm with a little more force than necessary and the elder Winchester brother held up the crumpled bill with a triumphant smirk.

Castiel’s blue eyes narrowed, realizing that somehow he had just settled a bet. “Why did you summon me?” he demanded gruffly.

“Shits and giggles,” Dean said promptly, taking a swig of his beer.

The angel’s forehead wrinkled as he tried to understand why excrement and laughter were reasons to summon him. Did it have to do with plumbing? He didn’t know much about plumbing other than it involved one of those sticks with the rubber circle at the end.

“Sorry. We need you to translate something from Enochian,” Sam said, sliding a few slips of paper towards the angel.

Ah, that made more sense, Castiel reflected. He took the pages--large photographs that Sam had printed out from the web of the internet. Someone had written in Enochian on the wall, but it was badly spelled and some of the letters were misshapen. “No angel wrote these,” he remarked.

“I managed to translate some of the symbols,” Sam said, scratching behind his ear with his pen. “I got blood and spirit and bound out of it, but some of these I can’t find anywhere.”

That was because they were the equivalent of a three year old child drawing on a port-a-potty in crayon. Castiel squinted at the symbols, holding the paper closer to his face. “It looks like it’s supposed to be a spell,” he said.

Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Supposed to be?” he repeated dryly.

“These symbols are… crudely drawn,” Castiel said, switching to the next page. “But I believe that it is an attempt to summon and bind an ekimmu.” Although it was hard to tell given how badly written this was.

“Gesundheit,” Dean said cheerfully, seeing his opportunity and grabbing it.

“What’s an ekimmu?” Sam asked.

“A blood drinking spirit with the body of a giant and the head of a bull,” Castiel said without looking away from the pages. “However, the person attempting this ritual is clearly inept in Enochian spellwork. I would not concern yourselves too greatly.” After all, a person this bad at writing basic symbols would probably end up siccing the spirit on themselves. And that was assuming they got the spell to work.

“Someone trying to summon the ghost of an evil cow man sounds pretty concerning to me,” Dean said, frowning and leaning over to see the screen of Sam’s laptop. “Where’s that at, anyway?”

“Uh…” Sam scrolled down the page for a second. “Evergreen, Colorado. Like maybe a day away?”

Ah. This was going to be one of those times where they were going to go anyway, no matter what he said.“If an ekimmu is summoned, it will be found in steam tunnels, sewers and other places of decay,” Castiel said, offering back the pages. “It will inspire discord and violence in the people until it is exorcised.”

“Well then, I guess we should stop whoever is trying to summon it, huh?” Dean said, tossing his beer can into the trash.

“Did you need me for anything else?” Castiel asked. They could handle a little ekimmu, right? But then again, this was Dean and Sam. If it was possible for Dean to die or Sam to get possessed, it would probably happen. Perhaps he should stay…

“Nah, we should be good,” Sam said.

“Dude, why are you covered in mud?” Dean asked, apparently just seeming to notice Castiel’s clay caked state.

Castiel stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain what he had been doing. “I was looking for my Father,” he said finally. The search for his Father continued. He’d been given a lead by Loco the Vodou loa, but he was beginning to think that it was another dead end. Loa weren’t particularly the most reliable sources to begin with and Castiel was fairly sure that he had inadvertently offended Loco somehow. The comment about serving an inferior god had probably been undiplomatic.

“Where? In a mud factory?”

“Atlantis,” Castiel said.

Sam looked up, a question on his lips about the sunken city. Humans had a lot of myths about Atlantis, but it was really rather boring. It was wet, and where it wasn’t wet it was muddy, and where it wasn’t wet or muddy it was dark and stale. Dean, however, seemed less impressed.

“How come you never take us when you go looking for God?”

Because Dean would probably punch Him in the face and Castiel rather wanted to keep him in one piece. He didn’t say that though; that would have been tactless. “It’s personal,” he said and vanished.

“He really doesn’t get the concept of ‘good-bye’, does he?” Sam commented, gathering the papers and starting to stack them neatly to go in their folder. “Meet you at the car?”

“Yup,” Dean said, getting up. The keys to Impala jingled slightly as he took them from his pocket. He glanced at where the angel had been standing moments before. Looking for God, huh? They had faced demons and angels and everything in between, but they had never seen God. Dean was fairly sure that God was either dead or a manipulative asshole.

But he’d be damned (again) if he crushed Castiel’s hope that his divine Father--with a capital F--would reveal the logic behind the chaos of their lives. He didn’t want to risk the damage it would to Cas’s spirit. Sometimes hope was the only thing that kept people going.

 

Jonathon Norton wasn’t sure how this woman--Annabelle, she’d said her name was--had found him. She’d simply shown up on his doorstep and invited herself in when he’d opened the door to ask what she wanted.

“I’m so sorry the place is a mess; I don’t have company very often,” Norton said, hurriedly kicking some clutter under the couch. She was looking around with a vaguely amused expression on her face, sometimes picking up a book and flipping through a few pages.

“You really need to be more careful about where you do your magic, sweetie,” she said, grabbing the tome of Enochian symbols from the coffee table. Norton’s breath sucked in. Crap, she knew. How the hell did she know? “Your symbols made the internet as graffiti because someone thought they looked cool,” she remarked, turning a page.

Crap, crap, crap! Norton’s eye flicked to the ceremonial knife under the stack of papers. “What’s it to you?” he said, easing towards them. She didn’t look like she had a gun and there were wards on the house, of course. If she had been an angel or a demon, she wouldn’t have been able to enter without his invitation. But that didn’t mean that she was human or safe.

The woman smiled. “Well, you didn’t have any success if I’m guessing correctly,” she commented, tossing the book. “You know, there are easier ways to summon a spirit than trying to write in the language of angels.”

“Not if I want an angel,” Norton said flatly, his hand sliding under the stack and curling around the knife’s handle.

She frowned, crimson painted lips twisting with a grimace of distaste. “Good thing your spell didn’t work, then,” she said, leaning back on the couch with an air as if she owned the place. “You would have summoned the wrong thing and gotten eaten.”

“Who are you?” Norton said tersely. He didn’t like her. Something about this woman just rubbed him the wrong way.

“Like I said, my name is Annabelle,” she replied. “And I’m going to teach you how to summon an angel the easy way.”

Now she had his attention. Norton let go of the knife and walked over to the couch, taking a seat next to her. This prompted an annoyingly smug smirk from her, but he’d tolerate it if she could really do what she said. “What’s the catch?” he asked.

Annabelle smiled. “Such paranoia! Must there be a catch? What if I’m here out of the goodness of my heart to help you because I’m your fairy godmother?” she laughed.

Norton really, really doubted that was the case. All of the angel experts he’d talked to either charged through the nose for their services or they were frauds. Or both. It was part of the reason he was struggling to get results. His skepticism must have shown on his face because she gave a chuckle.

“The catch,” she said, leaning forward slightly, “is you’re going to help me kill someone.”

Norton’s mouth opened to the tell the psycho bitch to get the fuck out of his house. But the faint creak of the floorboards made his head turn. Margot stood in the doorway to the living room, her eyes tired and her face gaunt. “Honey?” she said, her breathing painfully raspy. “Who’s this?”

Norton’s mouth went dry. “A friend,” he said, getting up from the couch. “Come on, you know you’re not supposed to get out of bed,” he said, going over and picking her up gently. She was so light. It was like holding a baby bird instead of a full grown woman. “Give me a second,” he told his guest.

Margot made a quiet noise, nuzzling into his neck. “You fuss over me too much,” she whispered as he carried her back to the bedroom. It looked nothing like it had when they had first moved in. The bottles of perfume on her dresser had long ago been replaced by pills and needles. Not that they did anything to help her. They were just supposed to make the final transition less painful.

Margot murmured slightly as he tucked her back into bed. He wasn’t going to lose her. He refused to. He shut the door quietly behind him and walked back into the living room. The dark haired woman raised an eyebrow.

There was a moment of silence as Norton considered what to say. Could he really kill someone? In exchange for help summoning an angel? The answer was yes. Most emphatically yes. He’d do worse if it got him what Margot needed. Right now, a miracle was his only hope.

“Who do you need me to kill?”

 

Her name was Daisy. She didn’t like her name. She felt like it didn’t suit her; sometimes she couldn’t help thinking that it was like being forced to wear someone else’s clothes because your own had been stolen. You were grateful you had clothes to wear at all, but they itched and smelled weird and didn’t fit quite right. Sometimes she wondered if her parents had just run out of ideas.

Daisy scowled. Not because of her name, but because of the empty spot in the bookcase where the copy of “Forbidden Mysteries of Enoch” was supposed to be. Everyone was talking about the graffiti in the abandon 21st garage and she was 29 percent sure that it was supposed to be Enochian summoning spell. She’d recognized it from that stupid Ghostfacers show. In all honesty, 29 percent wasn’t usually enough to send her to the library, but an argument with her ex had resulted in a bet she intended to win. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do since she didn’t have a job…

“Looking for this?”

Daisy turned to see a rather tired looking man in a scruffy pullover holding the exact book she needed. “I just need the section with the translation keys, actually,” she said. “You can have the book, but is there a chance you could let me take a picture of them with a phone?”

He stared at her for a moment. It was a weird look. Like he was assessing a threat. “You don’t want this book,” he said after a moment. “The translations are wrong.”

“Really,” Daisy said, not sure she believed him. This was the book that had been recommended on the forum for that stupid Ghostfacers show. But then again, she didn’t exactly think highly of their show anyway. “Well, do you know where I can get the right translations?”

“Not here, you’d have to order it online,” the man said. “Unless you know someone who already owns a copy. Which I do,” he said with a slight smile.

Was that a come over to my house and look at my rare book pick-up line? Daisy couldn’t help a laugh. “Are you hitting on me?” she chuckled, putting a hand on her hip and raising an eyebrow. She had to wonder if that line ever worked for this guy.

He gave her a look like she’d just crawled out of trashcan. “No, I’m trying to offer to get you a copy of the translation key,” he said coldly. Ouch. Okay, so not trying to flirt. He tossed the book at her and corner hit her in the chest. Double ouch. “Forget I said anything.” He turned and disappeared into the bookcases.

Daisy gaped for a second, massaging the place where the book had hit her. This guy was clearly a little crazy, but he seemed to know what he was talking about. She shoved the book into the shelf with the others of its kind. “Hey! Hey, wait up!” she yelled, running after him.

 

Sometimes driving was the best part of this job. Being a Hunter meant a lot of danger, excitement and not knowing what was coming. The monotony of the highway with only the radio and each other to break the silence--this was probably the closest they ever got to peaceful. It was a little sad when Sam thought about it.

“So, what do the books say about this… eskimo thing?” Dean asked, tapping along to Led Zeppelin on the radio. “Aside from big scary cow man?”

“Ekimmu,” Sam corrected without thinking, not looking up from his reading. He was pretty sure that Dean was just butchering the name on purpose. “It’s the spirit of someone who died violently and wasn’t buried properly and then was summoned to plague an enemy. The main theory about why they pop up instead of regular ghosts is that the spirit gets deformed while being summoned.”

“Yikes, no wonder they’re pissy,” Dean said. “Hauled out of paradise and then someone slaps a cow’s head on ya? I’d be pretty angry myself.”

Sam snorted slightly, shifting his grip on the flashlight so it shone on the page better. “I’m still working on the exact translation of what’s written,” he said. “But the symbols are kind of hard to read.”

“What do you have so far?” Dean asked, glancing over briefly and then returning his eyes to the road.

“Uhhh…” Sam looked at his notes. He was sort of guessing what the symbols said based on their context and possible similarities to other symbol. “‘I something the spirit from or of the abyss. Something, something, something, misery, something, something--”

“Sounds like a really detailed translation,” Dean laughed.

Sam shot his older brother a dirty look. “You want to take a shot translating this while I drive?” he asked pointedly.

“Nope, keep going,” Dean said, grip tightening on the steering wheel slightly. No one was taking his baby from him and research was for nerds anyway.

“Yeah, thought not,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. “Where was I?” he asked with a grimace.

“Something, something, misery,” Dean prompted.

“Oh, right,” Sam said, finding his place again. He decided to skip ahead a little to the parts he had better translations for. “‘Come to me and deliver my… uh something something something agony. I summon and bind you by the power of something.’” He shrugged. “It is the summoning spell for the ekimmu from what I can tell, but a lot of the symbols have been either changed or so poorly drawn that it’s basically gobbledy-gook. Cas was right,” he added. “Whoever is writing this has no idea what they’re doing.”

Dean smirked. “Good news for us and bad news for them, right?”

Sam smiled. “Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed. It was looking like they just needed to find whoever was messing around with this stuff and scare them a little so they wouldn’t keep trying to summon this thing. Although it did seem kind of weird that someone this inept with Enochian symbols would know of something as obscure as an ekimmu summoning spell…  Sam’s smile faded slightly as the cold finger of worry poked at his spine.

Please, he prayed quietly as he turned off his flashlight and stashed his notes in the glovebox, let this be a straightforward trip just for once. He pressed his head to the window, closing his eyes to doze so he’d be alert when it was his turn to drive.

 

“Daisy, meet Annabelle.”

What a trio they made, Daisy thought as she shook the dark haired woman’s hand. Norton looked like a shut in that they had forcibly drug from his home. Annabelle was seven types of classy with her little black dress and crimson lipstick. And then there was herself--the comparatively normal one with her jeans and a shirt from some diner in Delaware. The other early morning coffee shop patrons were glancing over on occasion, but they seemed to be polite enough not to point as well as stare.

“So, you’re the angel expert that Norton was telling me about,” she said as they all sat down around the small corner table..

“Not an expert on angels, but let’s just say I have a lot of experience summoning things,” said the woman called Annabelle with a laugh at some private joke. “What’s your interest in our little ritual?” she asked.

Daisy blinked, taken aback by the question. Norton had confessed to the graffiti and, on learning why he had been doing it, Daisy hadn’t had the heart to get him in trouble for it. He just wanted an angel to heal his wife. What did she want?

“I guess I’m just curious?” Daisy said.

“You know what they say about curiosity?” Annabelle said with a chuckle.

Daisy rolled her eyes, expecting to hear the age old adage that curiosity killed the cat. She should have suspected that this stuck up floozy would try to get her out of the loop. She wanted to meet an angel. It’d be one hell of a story to tell at the bar later.

“William Ward said that curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning,” Annabelle said. “You’re welcome to join us, but you will have to follow my orders without hesitation or question. Otherwise,” she said, lifting a manicured finger, “I can’t guarantee your safety.”

Daisy grinned. “Fair enough,” she said. “Is there a particular angel we’re summoning?” she asked eagerly, leaning forward with her elbows on the table.

“All angels can heal the sick to some degree or another,” Norton whispered. “And if the one we get isn’t powerful enough, we’ll have him--”

“--or her,” Annabelle supplied, stirring her coffee daintily.

“--or her,” Norton added with a sigh. “We’ll just have them call on one of their superiors.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Daisy said with a nod. “Hey, are you okay?” she asked Norton. His face looked like he had just bitten into a lemon.

“Fine,” he muttered, taking a chug of coffee. “Everything is fine except she’s going to kill you.”

“Wait, wh--”

Annabelle snapped her fingers and Daisy’s face went blank and her limbs went limp. It was like a puppet that had just had its strings cut. Norton groaned, burying his head in his hands. “When you said you wanted to kill her, I thought you just meant shoot her or something,” he said desperately, trying to keep his voice low. He really didn’t want the other coffee shop goers to hear this conversation. “This is just cruel.”

“You want me to help you get an angel?” Annabelle demanded, eyes narrowing.

“Yes!” Norton said desperately, lifting his head. He spoke little too loudly, prompting some heads to turn.

“Then you stick to the plan,” Annabelle hissed. “We’ll talk about this more later.” She snapped her fingers and Daisy sat up, eyes lighting up as if someone had flipped an “on” switch.

“Sounds like a good plan,” Daisy said with nod as if the last few minutes had not happened. “Hey, are you okay?” she asked Norton. He looked really distressed about something and was looking at her with the oddest expression.

“Fine,” Norton said quietly, looking away and focusing on his coffee. “When are we doing this?”

“Midnight tonight,” Annabelle said with a triumphant smile. She looked such as one might expect from someone who had just won an argument. “Meet tonight in the warehouse on 15th street.”

“Awesome,” Daisy said with another nod, grabbing her stuff from under her chair. “I just remembered I have to get run some errands so I’ll see you then.” She had literally just remembered. She wasn’t sure how she could have forgotten. It was like it had popped into her head the moment she opened her mouth to agree to the plan.

“See you then,” Norton echoed, staring at Annabelle as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t.

Daisy ran off. The remaining two sat at the table. Annabelle took a sip of her coffee, ignoring the pained looked on Norton’s face. Things were all going according to plan. She’d just have to massage Norton’s guilt a little. She had a feeling that she’d see her point of view once she explained exactly why “Daisy” deserved to die.

And it wasn’t like it was permanent.

 

“Hundred bucks for a hotel room,” Dean grumbled. “We’re truly outside civilization, Sammy.”

Sam tried not to laugh as he flopped onto the closest bed. It was actually soft for once and didn’t have the usual lumps. He was okay not staying at the El Sleezo Motel for once. It wasn’t even that expensive; Sam was pretty sure that they had paid more to stay in worse before. Plus, it beat sleeping in the Impala and there was free wifi.

Dean scowled, dropping his bag and walking over to the window. He lifted one of the slats slightly so he could see outside without being seen. The parking lot outside was very empty except for the Impala and a classy grey Jaguar XJS. His lips curved slightly. Well, at least people had good taste in cars here…

“The graffiti was seen in a parking garage on 21st street,” Sam said, interrupting his thoughts. “I figured we could ask around and see if we can find--”

“Lunch,” Dean finished. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry and I want a burger.”

“You always want a burger,” Sam said dryly. The day that Dean turned down a burger was going to be the day that world really did end for good. “Okay. Lunch and then we start asking around?”

“Works for me,” Dean said cheerfully, turning away from the window. “How’s the translation coming?”

“It’s not,” Sam said, rubbing his eyes. He’d been working on it non-stop when he wasn’t driving or sleeping. “Notes are in my bag if you want to look over them.”

Dean looked at his not-so-little younger brother. Sam looked dead tired. They had booked it pretty fast, he supposed. And they were going to need to be on their A-game going against this ekimmu; first time facing a new monster always had a few hiccups. “Sammy?” he said.

“Mmm?”

“You crash for a bit,” Dean instructed, heading for the door. “I’m going to go get us some grub. Be back in thirty.”

“Mkay,” Sam said, grabbing a pillow and shoving it under his head just like he used to when they were kid.

Dean smiled slightly, heading out of the hotel room and to the front desk to ask where the closest burge was. The clerk was already occupied, chatting with a dark haired woman who was holding his palm and tracing the lines. Dean’s eyes narrowed slightly. He wasn’t a fan of people into palm reading and stuff like that. It was kind of like dancing in a thunderstorm wearing metal pants and expecting not to get struck by lightning. He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway, waiting for her to finish so he could ask his question.

“See, your health line is crossed which means that you’re prone to accidents,” she was saying. “But your palm also indicates that you’re very lucky so I wouldn’t be too worried.”

“That’s really cool,” the clerk laughed. “You do tarot too?”

“Tarot, love potions, charms and curses,” the dark haired woman smiled.

Dean tilted his head slightly, wondering if enochian magic was on that resume too. She didn’t look like the sort who’d be trying to summon a bloodthirsty giant cow man, but in Dean’s experience appearance wasn’t a good indicator of anything. Something in his gut said something was up with this woman.

“Really cool,” the clerk repeated, cheeks pink.

Oh, please, Dean thought in disgust. This was getting ridiculous. He strode up to the desk, carefully staying out of reach of the Elvira wannabe just in case she really was a witch. She wasn’t getting his DNA if he could help it. “Hey, where’s a place I can get food?” he asked.

“Cactus Jack’s is just up the road just by the dam,” the clerk said, his hand still in the probable-witch’s. Dean wasn’t sure if he was stupid or bewitched. He didn’t want to find out.

“Thanks,” Dean said with a nod, tapping the counter and then turning to leave. He could feel the witch’s eyes on him. Hoo-boy. Things just got interesting, Dean reflected as he walked out to the Impala. Taking a seat behind the wheel, he pulled out his phone; Sammy was going to need a heads up.

Back in the hotel room, Sam lay quietly, eyes closed peacefully as he savored the moment of calm. Just as he was about to go to sleep, a chime from his phone prodded his consciousness back towards wakefulness. Grumbling, the younger Winchester brother grabbed his cell, checking the text message Dean had just sent him.

“Well… crap,” Sam muttered, sitting up and looking around. To mangle an old Indiana Jones quote: Witches, why did it always have to be witches?


	3. We Didn't Start the Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really having too much fun coming up with songs for the titles. Hahahaha.

Sam sometimes regretted being pre-law in college. Breaking and entering was a fairly regular practice in their line of work. However, it was so much easier for Dean, because Dean hadn’t been forced to memorize the legal definition of the act. Using the slightest amount of force--even pushing open a closed door--to enter a residence or enclosed property without permission immediately moved you from merely entering to breaking and entering. At the very least, it was illegal trespass--a misdemeanor--but if you did something illegal on the premises you’d broken into then that opened you up to other charges.

Breaking into someone’s hotel room to see if they were a witch? Definitely breaking and entering, and probably harassment to boot. After Dean had brought back the food, they had agreed that someone needed to check and see if the other guest at Mountain Inn really was a witch. They had flipped a coin; Sam had lost.

The younger Winchester brother couldn’t help a mental apology to his professors as the door unlocked with a quiet click and he put the lock-picks back in his pocket. Glancing either direction down the hall, he carefully turned the handle and pushed the door open.

Witch or not, this woman was clearly not the most tidy. Sam careful started to search all the usual hiding places. Bathroom ledges, under the mattress, in between the pages of the hotel Bible--people really weren’t as inventive about hiding things as they thought. Nothing witchy aside from a cheap set of tarot cards spread across the desk. Perhaps she wasn’t a witch after all. Not a real one.

Sam sighed with relief, absently picking up the day planner beside the cards and flipping through it. January, February, March, instructions on summoning a crossroads demon, the binding of lesser spirits, a curse of boils… “Shit,” Sam muttered, slowing down to look at the spells. This was definitely a witch’s grimoire.

He glanced around, debating whether he should take the book or not. On one hand, certain witches tended to rely heavily on their spellbooks, but for others it was just a resource. Some witches put tracking spells on their grimoires so they wouldn’t lose them, others weren’t that resourceful. Basically, it boiled down to whether he wanted to risk leaving it or risk having an angry witch chasing after him later.

Sam had a feeling he was going to regret this; nevertheless, he slipped the small book into his coat and started to sneak out of the room carefully. He tiptoed out, trying to disturb as little of the clutter as possible, and closed the door behind him. He exhaled, relieved that his burglary hadn’t been detected. Alright, back to Dean to show his score and decide what to do.

A few turns and flight of stairs later, Sam walked into their hotel room and plopped the grimoire on the bed next to his brother’s head. Dean sat up, opening the book and giving a low whistle. “I knew that bitch was a witch,” he commented, examining a page on the manipulation of memory.

“Yeah, well, it’s got some pretty heavy duty stuff in there,” Sam said dryly, making sure the door was locked. He came over and sat down. “I didn’t see any materials for hex bags, though, so that’s a plus, I guess?” Unless it just meant that she’d created and placed them and disposed of any leftovers.

“Good, I hate those things,” Dean said with a slight shudder, shutting the book and putting it on the far corner of the bed. He was eying it like it might bite him if he moved too suddenly. Which, given some of their previous experiences, was actually more likely than either of them was comfortable with admitting.

“So, now what?” Sam asked.

“We find the witch and gank her before she can set this thing loose on people,” Dean said dryly. After all, what else would they do? Throw her a party? Take her out for drinks and ask her nicely not to let the evil bloodthirsty minotaur ghost loose on an unsuspecting town?

“Okay,” Sam said, but a question lurked at the bag of his head.He tried to silence the thought; witches were hard enough to kill without getting worried about handwriting samples. But he couldn’t shake it. If someone had a grimoire of fairly complex magic, why were they so terrible at drawing enochian symbols?

 

When Annabelle came back from her little meeting with Norton to review the plan, she immediately could tell that someone had been in her hotel room. The fact the grimoire was missing was a big hint. For a moment, she stood in the entry, drumming her fingers on the door frame as she reflected on this. It meant that either she had competition in the area or hunters were on her trail.

Either way, this was an annoying hiccup. She might have to change her plans a little to insure things went smoothly. Annabelle clicked her tongue irritably, pulling the door closed. She took the phone from her purse, pulling up Norton’s number. It rang three times before there was an exasperated: “What?!”

“Temper, temper, darling,” Annabelle said, glancing down the hall in both directions. She had a strong suspicion that she was being watched. “We have company in the area. We’re going to switch to plan B. Is our little friend with you?”

Norton gave a long suffering sigh. “Yeah, she’s here,” he said. He seemed to have gotten over his moral qualms at the prospect of killing “Daisy” but was still less than excited about playing babysitter. Oh well, she’d be alleviating him from the role of caretaker soon enough.

“Good, you two bundle up and head towards the site,” Annabelle said, heading towards the parking lot. She had everything she needed already in the car. It would just be a matter of getting this done quickly and skipping town. The grimoire wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things. “I’m getting in the car right now,” she added, sliding into the driver seat of the Jaguar. “So you two had better be there when I arrive.”

“W-Wai--”

Annabelle hung up and exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment. Why did people have to complicate things for her? She massaged her temples, muttering a curse under her breath. Some people were just too stupid to live. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, turning the key in the ignition. The car purred to life and Annabelle glanced over at the Impala beside her. It would be very easy to simply roll down her window, reach over, and leave a key mark along the black vehicle's body. Her lips curled back as she debated it.

No, even she had to have standards, she decided. She pulled out the parking lot, leaving the other car unmarked. No point in aggravating her “friends” further. They were probably pissy enough as it was.

 

“Dean, hurry up! She’s getting away!” Sam yelled, about ready to forcibly shove his brother into the Impala. The witch had taken one look at her hotel room, turned around and headed straight to her car while talking on the phone--presumably to another witch. However, she’d stared at the Impala before pulling out of the parking lot. Therefore, according to Dean’s logic, she’d hexed it and they weren’t leaving until he had made sure there weren’t any hex-bags or coins in his baby.

“I don’t wanna die on the road, Sam!” Dean retorted, glancing down the road where the witch’s car was rapidly shrinking in the distance. “Again,” he muttered under his breath. He checked one last nook and then gave the nod, indicating that the Impala was safe from hoodoo.

“Finally!” Sam said, getting into the car. He had barely reached for his buckle before Dean was in the driver’s seat and the Impala had taken off, tires screech. Sam yelped, grabbing ahold of the door handle and bracing a foot against the dashboard. “Jesus, Dean!” he exclaimed, eyes wide.

“What? She’s getting away!” Dean said snarkily as he sped after the Jaguar.

Sam was going to retort that he didn’t want to die on the road, but the words seemed to get caught in his throat as they hurtled down the road. Dean was a good driver, he had to remind himself. They would not wreck. Unless a deer ran out on the road or something. No, no! That was not the train of thought he wanted!

“Okay, where the hell are you going?” Dean muttered as he tried to follow the witch. She seemed to be going in circles, turning this way and that. Trying to lose them obviously, but where was she going? “Shit!” he roared as the witch suddenly slammed on her brakes. The tires of the Impala screamed as they drew closer and closer to the back end of the Jaguar.

Sam scrunched his eyes. They were going to hit. They were going to backend the witch and Dean was going to lose it. There was the roar of a engine, another set of tires screeching, and Sam heard Dean curse again. He managed to pry his eyes open just in time to see the witch’s car take off and pull one of the sharpest U-turns Sam had ever seen while the Impala skidded to a halt where it had been moments before. “Holy shit!”

“Of course we’d get the goddamn NASCAR witch!” Dean yelled angrily, hitting the gas and starting to turn around after her. Sam yelped, tightening his grip as they took off down the road after her. Dean snarled another expletive as the witch rounded a corner with merely inches to spare. “Now she’s just fucking showing off!”

Sam tried to breathe, hastily clicking his seat belt. Breathing was important. It wasn’t like they weren’t hurtling down the road in a high speed car chase after a woman who would probably try to kill them if they caught her. Why were they in this business again? Sam reflected weekly as the turn slammed him against the car door. “Dean, I know you’re dedicated to catching this witch but--”

Another sharp turn and Sam was incredibly grateful to have fastened his seatbelt. It snapped taught, keeping him from sliding into his brother. “--can you drive less like a crazy person?” he gasped.

“Where the hell she’d go?” Dean demanded, gesturing at the empty road. This street seemed to have dozens of little side-roads leading off it. They had probably already passed it.

“Where did who go?” came the question from the back seat.

The tires of the Impala squealed and for a moment Sam thought Dean was going to have a heart attack right there in the driver’s seat. “Jesus Christ, Cas!” Dean exclaimed, a sentiment that Sam couldn’t help empathizing with.

“You should not use the name of the son of God as a profanity, Dean,” Castiel said severely. It would have been hilarious if he hadn’t been so serious. “I checked your hotel and you weren’t there. I came to discuss the Enochian graffiti with you.”

“Great! You can help us find the witch doing it!” Dean said, his face brightening. He pulled over onto the side of the road. He turned in his seat and looked at Castiel expectantly.

Sam’s breath exhaled and the younger Winchester sent up a silent prayer of thankfulness that they had stopped moving. He glanced at Castiel and frowned. “Is everything okay?” he asked. Castiel looked vaguely like a kicked puppy.

“I… may have accidentally misinformed you,” Castiel said, looking at Sam and avoiding Dean’s eyes. He always did that when he didn’t want to talk about something or felt guilty, Sam had noticed. He’d look anywhere but at Dean. “I was contemplating the Enochian symbols you’d shown me and then I remembered that one of my brethren sometimes goes by the name of Ikymo.”

Sam’s forehead wrinkled. “Okay,” he said, not certain how this was relevant. Was this going to be another one of those things like the reference about breeding with the mouth of the goat? Then it clicked. It all boiled down to phonetics.

“Your point?” Dean asked bluntly.

“He’s saying that someone spelled an angel’s name wrong,” Sam said. “They were trying to summon an angel.”

Dean frowned, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “Okay,” he said at length. “What would a witch want with an angel?” he asked, visibly trying to reconcile what they already knew with this new information. It was a bit of a puzzle; witches were known more for their association with demons rather than their heavenly counterparts.

“There are... ways to bind an angel to do one’s will,” Castiel said, his tone cautious. “But most are… unpleasant and bloody.” He seemed uncomfortable with merely mentioning it, which made Sam wonder exactly what Castiel meant by unpleasant and bloody.

“Wait, remember, uh--” Dean snapped his fingers, trying to remember the name of something or someone “--the Elysian Fields Hotel!” he said triumphantly. “When the apocalypse was coming? Kali used a blood magic thing to bind Gabriel. Something like that?” he asked Castiel.

Castiel blinked in surprise. “That would be one way of doing it, yes,” he replied. “Perhaps the cleanest, actually,” he said, wrinkling his forehead. “But that would require a sophisticated grasp of magic that I believe would beyond the person who had drawn basic Enochian so poorly,” he added with a slight smile.

“Great, so no problem, right?” Sam asked hopefully. Maybe the witch would summon an angel and get smited for her trouble. It’d be awesome if they could just go back to the hotel and relax. Annnnnnd Castiel was now giving him them no-you-stupid-human look. Okay, so apparently there was still a problem.

“This witch you were speaking of, assuming we have judged her levels of knowledge correctly, will not be working alone,” the angel said, no longer smiling. “The crudest method of binding an angel involves an Iphigenian sacrifice.”

“A what now?” Dean said blankly, not as versed in the Iliad as his brother.

“Iphigenian,” Castiel repeated, “referring to the Iphigenia the daughter of Agamemnon who was sacrificed to Artemis so the Greeks could sail to Troy to rescue Helen.”

“Human sacrifice,” Sam summarised.

“Oh, now that is a big problem,” Dean sighed.

 

“Okay, it’s been twenty minutes,” Daisy said, glancing at her watch. Annabelle had called Norton, insistent on them being at the warehouse when she got there. Well, they were in the warehouse, but there was no sign of their fearless leader. The only thing keeping her from panicking was the fact that Norton looked on the verge of a stroke; she had a feeling that her staying calm was the only thing keeping him from melting down completely. “We’ll give her another twenty and if she’s not here by then, we’ll assume she’s not coming.”

“No! She has to come!” Norton exclaimed, shaking his head. He had practically worn a groove into the floor from pacing back and forth.

There was the sound of tires skidding to a halt outside and Norton’s head snapped towards the sound. “Hey, look,” Daisy said, glancing out the window and seeing Annabelle getting out of her car. “Annabelle’s h--”

Norton was already running out the door. He started yelling at Annabelle, clearly upset about something. Daisy stood inside the warehouse uncertainly, reminded a little too vividly of standing outside the kitchen while her family argued. She didn’t want to interfere, but at the same time she was almost worried about what would happen if she didn’t. After a few moments, Annabelle said something, Daisy couldn’t tell what, and the yelling stopped.

Daisy breathed a sigh of relief and walked out to help get the materials for the ritual. “Glad you could make it,” she greeted as Annabelle popped open the trunk.

“We’re going to have to work fast,” Annabelle said without preamble, grabbing a can of spray paint and a printout. She handed them to Norton. “Get this painted on the floor and do not mess up,” she instructed. “And, you,” Annabelle said, grabbing a marker and drawing a symbol on the back of Daisy’s hand. “Draw this on each wall, starting in the west,” she ordered, heading into the warehouse.

“What is it?” Daisy asked, looking at the sigil on her hand. It looked unpleasantly familiar, although she could have sworn she’d never seen it before in her life. She picked up a can of spray paint, staring at the symbol as she walked towards the western wall.

“It’s part of the angel binding,” Annabelle called over from where she helping Norton and setting up the other elements of the ritual.

For a minute, Daisy felt something stirring in the back of her mind. It was something similar to the urge to touch the candle flame or to step off the edge of the cliff, but opposite. An urge not to draw the sigil because of an inexplicable sudden worry that something would go very wrong if she did. It was ridiculous, she knew that. She had no reason to worry.

“Anytime in the next year would be nice,” Annabelle said dryly. “It’s not like there’s anyone following me.”

Daisy shook the spray can and pushed the button. It hissed like a snake preparing to strike, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end while she drew the sigil. She quickly turned away and went to the next blank wall, not wanting to have to look any longer than she had to.

“I’ll get the south wall,” Norton said, the impatience and agitation clear in his face. He jogged over and quickly sprayed the sigil onto the wall. Daisy exhaled, stepping back as she finished putting up the last one.

“Okay, now what?” she asked, putting down the spray paint.

“Now,” Annabelle smiled, tossing her a matchbook. “You get to stand in the circle and be on stand-by to light the herbs. When Norton gets to the word ‘ignis’, you drop the match in, got it?”

Daisy nodded, but with less conviction than she would have liked. She eased carefully into the circle, trying not to step on any of the lines so she wouldn’t mar them. Her heart was beating like a drum as she took her place.

“Here’s the chant,” Annabelle said, handing a piece of paper to Norton. “Knock yourself out, dear.”

Dear? Daisy opened her mouth slightly, the word causing a brief flicker of panic that passed as soon as it came. She closed her mouth, deciding it was just nerves.

“Denuntiamus autem vobis,” Norton began to read. “Marchocias offeres venditas.”

Daisy took a deep breath, pulling out a match and lighting it. The flame danced, so calm and pretty. She watched it as she listened intently, waiting for her cue to drop the match into the bowl of herbs. She found herself wishing she’d studied Latin at some point, but it was probably just normal prayer stuff.

“Adiuro vos carnes, et ignis in oblatione,” Norton continued.

Wait! Ignis! Daisy dropped the match into the herbs. The flame sputtered for a moment and Daisy looked over at Annabelle questioningly. She’d done it exactly like she’d been told to; why had nothing happened?

“Tolle quod tuum est,” Norton was reading, “et venit mercedem accipiet--”

Annabelle was grinning widely and Daisy realized that the witch was very slowly stepping towards the exit. And it occurred to Daisy that if this had been safe, Annabelle would have done it herself.  

Oh. Oh shit. “Norton, wait!” she yelled.

“--secundum mandata tua,” Norton finished and then he looked up at her. His expression was pained and apologetic and his next two words were so quiet that Daisy didn’t even hear them. But she knew what they were: “I’m sorry.”

The sigil on the back of her hand glowed for a moment and then the white-hot pain blazed up her arm. Within moments, it had spread over her entirely, tinting the world crimson through the flame and the agony.

  


They saw the smoke before the fire. It was never good sign. The Winchesters had a complicated relationship with fire. Sure, they used it regularly to salt and burn remains and, hell, it was the only way to take down a Wendigo and survive. But that didn’t change the fact that fire was synonymous with death and pain. Too many good people had perished in hellfire, and there had been too many funeral pyres and early goodbyes.

“God damn it,” Dean swore under his breath as the Impala pulled up to the burning warehouse. The flames were devouring it and any minute it would collapse in on itself. Anyone inside was probably dead, suffocated by the smoke.

A man paced outside the warehouse, singed hair gripped in hands and his eyes wide as they took in the flames. He jumped when he heard the Impala come close and blanched, backing a few steps away and looking around. That was a pretty good indication of a guilty conscience.

“Dean,” Sam pointed out urgently, hurrying to unbuckle.

“I see him!” Dean responded, already unbuckled and out the window. He wasn’t sure what this guy thought he was going to achieve by running, but it was going to be an exercise in futility. Dean had outrun hellhounds; he was pretty sure he could catch a slightly chubby man in a bad sweater.

The man gave a rather girly scream as Dean tackled him, cringing and covering his head protectively. “Please don’t kill me!” he exclaimed. He was clearly aware that he’d been caught doing something bad. Good, that meant he’d spill the beans quickly.

“Where’s the witch?” Dean demanded, shaking the man by the sweater. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to scare him a little.

“She--she got us to summon that thing and then she left!” the man said, visibly shaking. “That wasn’t an angel! That was no fucking angel!”

“What did you summon?” Sam asked as he jogged up.

The man’s mouth moved wordlessly for a second.

“What did you summon?” Dean roared, prompting another whimpering cringe.

“I-it called itself Marchocias!” the man yelped. “I just wanted to help my wife!”

Dean glanced over at Sam, wanting to know if he could punch this idiot in the face. Marchocias was a demon--a lesser demon known for being easily manipulated to the will of a sorcerer, but a demon nonetheless. If he slipped his leash, then there would be trouble. Sam grimaced but turned to the man.

“What exactly did you say to it?” Sam said, his voice full of a forced patience that Dean wouldn’t have been able to muster. This idiot didn’t seem to have a clue what he’d done.

“I-I told it to go to hell!” the man said, giving a slightly hysterical laugh.

The two brothers exhaled in unison. Marchocias was pretty literal as far as demons went. If the sorcerer--although it seemed a pretty big stretch to call this guy a sorcerer--had said to go to hell, Marchocias would have headed back to Hell. Which meant a lot less clean-up.

“Dude, do you realize you could have died?” Dean said.

The man nodded, his expression indicating that the fact had become abundantly clear once the fire had started.

“You’re just lucky that no one was hurt,” Sam commented.

The man’s eyes flickered towards the fire and his shoulders slumped. “I’m going to hell, aren’t I?” he whispered, burying his face in his hands.

Any of Dean’s sympathy vanished as he glanced at the collapsing warehouse. Someone had been in there and this son of a bitch had left them. “Yeah,” he said flatly. “You probably are.”


	4. Chapter 4: The Point of Know Return

**Chapter 5 (or 4?): The Point of Know Return**

In the beginning, God created man from dirt. To prevent the dead from rising as something less than human, the safest way was to return the body to its most fundamental state—the dust the first man had been created from. Because of this, hunters burned the dead. Ash wasn’t dirt, from technical standpoint, but it sure as hell made it hard to come back from the dead.

It made it painful too. Most resurrections, she had something—some fragment—to rebuild herself from, even if it was just a mangled mess. But this? This was agonizing. Every part of her, every limb, every bone, every nerve, every cell burned. Everything tasted of blood and ash. Every sound was drowned out by the ringing her ears.

Well, almost every sound. She could hear Annabelle yelling at her to hurry up and finish coming back to life. Why? Why would she want to come back to life? Pain was a uniquely alive sensation. Death was quiet and comfortable, but the more alive she became, the more she hurt. Why should she rush to come back so she could just die all over?

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”  Annabelle’s talon-like nails grabbed her face, digging into the regenerating lines of sinew and nerve. “Your name,” she said, voice laced with enchantment, “is Annabelle Karalis.”

As her mind struggled to fight the new personality and memories flooding into her brain, something clicked. Annabelle—the real Annabelle—was frightened. Someone or something was coming. If her eyes had been fully formed, they would have lit up with the faintest flicker of hope.

“There are two men coming. You are going to attack them and hold them off as long as it’s possible.”

 Oh goddamn it, she thought. Then her own thoughts and memories vanished, not to return until she died.

 

The tires of the Impala screeched to a halt as Dean threw it into park, already climbing out by the time it had jerked to a stop. Sam jumped out, glancing around the hotel parking lot. The witch’s car sat haphazardly, skid marks indicating that she’d been in a hurry.

“Sam! You stay here and watch the front!” Dean ordered, checking his gun and shoving it into his coat. He felt pretty confident in the assumption that this witch was up to no good. She’d already summoned a demon and gotten someone killed. This was one of those instances where the best defense was going to be a solid offense.

“Got it,” Sam said, nodding curtly and heading to the witch’s car. If they could keep her from using her get-away vehicle, it’d put the odds in their advantage slightly. Especially since Dean had no intention of having another Evel Knievel road case.

Dean pushed open the door to the hotel lobby. The clerk was slumped over the desk—dead or knocked unconscious. Dean exhaled a curse, taking out the handgun from his jacket. He really hated witches; they didn’t play fair. He quickly headed upstairs, moving quickly and quietly with his gun at the ready.

As he silently walked into the hall where the witch was staying, he could hear through the slightly open door the distinctive sound of luggage being hurriedly slammed and faint swearing. The symphony of someone having to pack up in a hurry so they could run. Well, this witch wouldn’t get the chance.

The door slammed open with bang. “Don’t move!” Dean yelled, aiming the gun at the woman hurriedly shoving things into a suitcase.

She froze, her eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights with one hand clutched around a jagged knife. Dean’s mouth dropped open slightly. Short brown hair, big brown eyes, round faced, it was that chick they’d saved from the wendigo who looked like the dead waitress!

“What the hell? Are you some goddamn skinwalker too?” Dean demanded.

Her posture straightened and she gave a tch of contempt. “A skinwalker?” she scoffed. “You insult me.” Her hand started to slip towards her coat pocket.

“Hands where I can see them, witch!” Dean ordered.

Her eyes narrowed. “What? Or you’ll shoot me? I answer to higher power than an oaf with a gun,” she said, taking a step towards him with the knife raised overhead.

Shit. She was going to stab him. Years of being a hunter had taught Dean that when something unnatural was trying to kill you, you killed it first. A witch who shared faces with a dead woman was definitely unnatural. Pulling the trigger was almost a reflex rather than a choice.

Dean’s ears rang from the shot as the woman staggered backwards a step. For a second, she looked at him with the most alarming clarity. Then she dropped to floor, a final shudder going through the body. The blood started to pool, turning the dark grey carpet black.

Dean lowered the gun. “Son of a bitch,” he swore, walking over and kneeling. He scratched his forehead, gripping his hair slightly as he looked at her. Dean didn’t usually spend long looking at the people he’d shot—he slept better if he didn’t—but this girl definitely had the exact same face as the girl who’d been eaten by vamps and the girl they saved from the wendigo. Twice he could dismiss as a coincidence. Three times?

He needed Sam. Sam was good with this sort of thing. If anyone would have a good explanation, it’d be his walking encyclopedia of a baby brother. Dean eyed the body suspiciously for a moment and got up, walking out of the room.

When they returned, the room was empty. The body, the books, the luggage had all vanished. The rumpled bed, the dislodged drawers and the splatter of blood and brain were the only testaments to what had happened.  The two brothers stood in the hotel room for a moment, digesting what had just happened.

“You’re sure she was dead?” Sam asked finally.

Dean groaned, giving the bed a frustrated kick. “At this point, I’m not sure of anything other than we are being stalked by a dead waitress,” he said sourly. “I shot her in the head, Sammy. She shouldn’t have been able to gather her things and just walk out,” he said, sweeping his arm towards the door.

“Well, since she’s gone, there’s no body and she cleared out all her stuff, there’s not really anything we can do,” Sam pointed out. “If it happens again, one of us sits on the body until we can both see it.”

Dean gave a heavy sigh. It was not the answer he wanted. At this point, whoever or whatever was doing this was deliberately fucking with them and he wanted it to stop.

“Okay, fine,” he said. “But next time it happens? Better be the last time.”

 

Annabelle was not happy. She was, by nature and as a result of certain circumstances, not a generally joyful person. It probably would have been more accurate to say that she was vexed at the moment. After a few hours of driving at breakneck speed, Annabelle finally pulled over at a fork in the road to reflect on the developments. She sat in her car, absently spinning the ring on her left hand, with her eyes narrowed.

The Winchesters. If you operated in the right circles, you knew about the Winchesters. They were dangerous and unpredictable. If you knew who they were, you prayed you would never meet them. Demons, monsters, witches, and, if the rumors were true, even a few gods had been killed by the Winchester brothers.

Annabelle did not fancy having her name added to the list. But knowing them, there was a chance they’d have followed her. She slipped the ring off her finger, pressing the band against her palm as she thought. There had to be a way to make this work.

A thump from the trunk broke her concentration and prompted an exasperated sigh. That was another problem; the shorter, presumably younger Winchesters had seen both them at some point. Not at the same time, however, which was a fluke of luck in their favor.

Annabelle slipped the ring back on, getting out of the car and walking to the trunk. She unlocked it and opened it with a mildly annoyed hum, looking at the bloody mess. “You’ll be scrubbing that out later,” she remarked, lips curling back in distaste.

She got a wordless whine of pain in response. Ah, that was right. Headshots tended to scramble the brain a little. Annabelle’s passenger looked at her with pained accusation and despair in her face. Good. At least something was going according to plan.

Annabelle drummed her fingers for a moment and then came to a decision. She grabbed the younger woman’s face, digging her nails into the bitch’s face. “Dolus, formant facie ad decipiendos,” she recited hurriedly and the flesh beneath her fingers began to warp and reshape like plastic being molded. “Dolus,” she said, raising her voice so she could herself over the cry of pain, “hunc volo vultus mutantur. Dolus, ut hanc esse larvam ignoretur,” she finished.

The other woman was gasping, breath ragged and tears running down her cheeks. Annabelle scowled, eying her handiwork. It would have been like looking in a mirror if she’d been a pathetic sobbing mess. “Get out,” she ordered, grabbing her newly created doppelgänger’s collar and pulling her from the trunk.

The clumsy bitch toppled out, smacking into the road with a pathetic whimper. Annabelle nudged her with a boot, prompting her to turn onto her back. “You are named Marianna,” she stated. “You’re a con artist who tells fortunes. You’ve just escaped being murdered by a madwoman who stole your car, kidnapped you, and claimed that she had to kill you or the balance would be undone. A life for a life.

“Now,” she said, pointing down the road back towards the city of Evergreen. Towards the Winchesters. “ _Run_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't updated in a while. Oopsies. I recently moved and there's been a lot of packing, unpacking, trying to find a job, etc. and not a lot of writing. However, because I finally had some free time, I sat down cranked this out. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> And, gee, Annabelle seems to have planned this out pretty well and might get away. I wonder what could go wrong...


	5. Life in the Fast Lane

Deer are stupid when it comes to traffic. On highway out of Evergreen, Colorado, the deer on the road could be serious hazard during mating season and other times when the population was high. Currently, a young buck was sharpening his horns on the bark of a roadside tree, eyeing the larger oak on the other side of the highway.

The does loved a buck who had sharpened his antlers on both sides of the road. He stopped sharpening his antlers. The tree on the other side of the road called to him.

If the deer had been smart, he’d have checked for oncoming traffic. Lucky for the buck and the Impala hurtling down the road, deer have quick reflexes.

“Jesus Christ, Dean!” screamed Sam, latching on the door handle as the car roared over the spot where the deer had been only moments before.

“Just Dean will work,” Dean said, ignoring his brother’s death grip on the weeney handle. There was one road out of Evergreen. One. The witch had to come this way. If they burned some rubber, it was possible they could catch her and get some answers.

To say that Sam was mildly concerned was to say the least. Dean was taking this rather personally. He agreed that this merited attention. Just not while hurtling down the road at 90 mph during deer mating season. Collisions with wildlife could be just as fatal as witchy hijinks; Sam did not want to die the victim of some stray effeminate moose.

“Just slow down a little before we end up reinventing ground venison, alright?” Sam ordered.

Dean didn’t reply. He knew exactly where he was going and if Sammy was worried about Bambi then his little brother really needed to rethink his priorities. Now, if he remembered right, there was a sharp turn here and--

If you hit a deer on the road at high speeds, the deer will most likely be tossed by the initial impact onto the hood of the car. Then it will smash into the windshield or be tumbled over the roof or both. The deciding factors are weight, speed, and the angle of the hit.

The same thing is true of humans.

The sound of speeding metal ramming into flesh made Sam’s hair stand on edge. The faint tinkle of glass cracking—the spider web fracture blossomed across the windshield as it was followed by thump of the body rolling over the body of the car. He wasn’t sure if someone was screaming or if it was the brakes as the Impala tried to stop too late.

Then silence. It was made worse by the sudden stillness as the Impala’s skidding halt ended. They had gone from moving very fast and chasing a bad guy to standing still and the culprits of a vehicular homicide. Dean’s knuckles were white, still clenched around the steering wheel.

“Dean,” Sam managed to croak, “I don’t think that was a deer.”

The words broke the horrible silence and both Winchesters were out of the car. “Go see if they’re still alive and I’ll see if we’ve got any medical stuff left,” Dean heard himself order, popping the trunk of the car. They had to have something; Sammy was pretty particularly about being prepared for on the job injuries. Although usually the injuries treated were theirs. And not inflicted by them.

Sam headed towards the crumpled figure on the road, mouth dry. There was a lot of blood. Where had all the blood come from? And then a twitch. The faintest twitch of a hand. “Dean, she’s alive!” he yelled, suddenly kneeling in the blood over the injured woman. “Hey! Hey, can you still me hear me? Miss?”

Her eyes were unfocused, but her hand snatched the front of his shirt with eerie tightness. Her lips moved for a moment, but the audible sound from them was a faint wheeze. Sam leaned in, trying to catch something, anything.  Because the horrible truth was this were her last words.

A syllable, half-choked, made him stiffen.

Then the labored breathing simply stopped and the hand gripped in his shirt loosened. Sam stared at the woman, getting to his feet and taking a step back.

Dean stopped beside his brother, looking at their unintentional handiwork solemnly for a moment. Then his expression suddenly changed. “What. The. Hell,” he stated, jabbing a finger at the body. “It’s the fucking witch from the hotel!”

“Wait, what?” Sam said. Suddenly this wasn’t sad as much as weird and suspicious. He stared at the body for a moment and then forced on a long-suffering smile. “Dean, she doesn’t look like the girl who got eaten by the vampire baby at all,” he said, trying not to lose his temper. They had just killed a girl and Dean had to have a psychological breakdown now?

“No, this one called herself Annabelle at the checkout and she looked completely different from that one!” Dean said impatiently. Honestly, why couldn’t Sammy keep up with these things? “She was checked into the room where I killed the Dead Face Girl and the body disappeared!”

Sam rubbed his eyes. He was tired. Dean was clearly going insane and they had just killed someone because of his reckless driving. This night could not get any better and he was going to have to try to get the keys away from his brother to top it all off.

“You cannot tell me something fishy isn’t going on,” Dean said emphatically, pointing for emphasis. “We are talking Biblical Whale levels of fishy.”

“Oh, I agree with you,” Sam said dryly. At this point, it wasn’t worth fighting. “Even without her supposedly sharing faces with a woman who apparently sells summoning spells for obscure demons, she said something to me before she died.”

Dean frowned.

Sam looked at the body, massing his temple. Okay, there had to be a good explanation to all this. One that would be a quick and easy fix. He really wanted to spend one night this week not chasing down some form of monstrosity.

 “Well? What did she say?” Dean demanded.

“She said to run,” Sam said dryly, turning his attention to his brother. “Cryptic, dramatic and unhelpful.”

Dean nodded slightly in thought. “You think she was being chased by something?” he asked, not looking away from the body.

“Maybe,” Sam said. They needed to rest before they started chasing anything and it wasn’t like that had much to go on. “But if she was a witch, it might just be that she had hell hounds after her.”

Dean shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. I mean, look at her,” he said with a gesture.

Sam glanced at the body and then froze. “Is her face rearranging itself?” he asked, staring. That wasn’t even the best word for it. He wasn’t sure that there was a word for what was happening. It was like watching clay being molded. “Wait,” Sam said as the features became more distinct. “Is that…?”

“Yup,” Dean said, walking back to Impala and grabbing a shot gun. The barrels gave a hostile clicking as he walked back over. “Still think I’m crazy?” he asked his brother, aiming it squarely at the dead woman.

“Well, the jury is still out on that,” Sam said, cracking a smile. Dean had a very intense look that concerned him. It reminded him a little too much of the look that their father had sometimes gotten when he was about to push things a little too far in the name of the Hunt. If he could just make Dean laugh, then maybe they could tackle this with a level heads and not end up doing something they’d regret.

Then, the worst thing possible in this situation happened. The body twitched.

 

It was always a gamble to say which sense would return first—unless you counted the pain. But the brain scrambling feeling of fire in every cell and fiber in her body as it tried to repair itself was a given. Sometimes she would be able to taste the bitterness in her mouth first, other times it was the ringing in her ears. This time it was the smell of her own scraped flesh and blood.

She could tell something was wrong. Normally, Annabelle controlled what part of her rose to the surface. Who she was and what she remembered were guided by the very person who killed her daily. But Annabelle wasn’t here this time. And a million versions of herself struggled to assert itself as the real one.

The pavement was warm, despite the cool night air. Parts of her were reflecting how nice it was, others complained about how rough and hard it was, and still others demanded to know if they were going to lie there all night. One part wept, wishing they could go back to the numbness.

Voices and the sound of an engine idling were the next things she was aware of. Some of her reasoned that they must have been hit by a car, some wondered if these people would help her, and some wanted to know what they’d been doing on the road in the first place. One of her didn’t care, wanting the silence back.

Eyes opened and there was a struggle for control. There was a faction in favor of getting up and running for it, another suggested just sitting and asking the motorists for help, and a small group that was wondering how quickly they could run towards the car and steal it. Her body attempted to reconcile all these suggestions at once, resulting in a spasmodic jerking upright.

That was when the shot gun went off. Blissful silence and numbness as she ceased to be once more.

 

“Dean!” Sam exclaimed, hands clasped over his ears. Not that he blamed his brother for reacting that way. Hell, you killed monsters long enough, shooting dead people when they sat up was almost a force of habit. But it had been very loud. And very messy because apparently Dean had grabbed normal shotgun shells instead of the salt ones. Sam was pretty sure that he’d seen an ear fly off.

“What?” Dean asked defensively.

“Nothing,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Holy water and salt before it tries to sit back up again?” he suggested, already heading to the trunk. He was trying to remember if there were any myths about women who changed their faces and came back from the dead. Closest thing he could think of was a ghoul.

Dean nudged the body with his boot. It was completely still now. No signs of life or regeneration. He wasn’t sure if that was good or not. Stepping to one side as Sam walked over with the salt and holy water, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was going to get complicated before it was done. Well, more complicated.

The rock salt rattled as it hit the body and the access rolled onto the pavement. A splash of holy water followed quickly. The two brothers stood there, waiting for any smoke or other reaction.

Nothing. But that only ruled out the demonic.

“Test for a reaction against iron or silver,” Dean suggested, keeping the gun trained on the body. The last thing he wanted was that thing sitting up and grabbing Sammy.

Sam nodded, pulling out a spoon from his coat pocket. “What?” he said defensively as his brother raised an eyebrow. It was silver and it’d been cheap at the antiques shop beside the gas station on their way into Evergreen.

“Nothing,” Dean said, shaking his head. Sammy wanted to start collecting spoons, then he wasn’t going to stop him. Better than stamps he supposed.

“I was going to melt it for bullets,” Sam explained, feeling judged.

“Just see if she sizzles, okay?” Dean said, watching the body warily. This was major mojo, coming back from the dead. He’d been there, done that, and only with the help of an angel because of the imminent apocalypse. Good memories. But the point was that this was a potentially dangerous situation.

Sam tapped the body with the silver spoon. Nothing. A quick press while counting to three Mississippis. Still nothing. “Okay,” Sam said carefully, putting the spoon in his pocket and digging out an iron nail. No reaction to that either. “Weird.”

“Dude, if this is another new monster, dibs on naming it,” Dean remarked. No reaction to salt, holy water, silver, or iron, but can come back from the dead after being hit by a car. This thing was officially nothing he knew about.

“What? You named the Jefferson Starships!” Sam protested, picking up the bottle of holy water to put back in the trunk. The trunk lid latched closed with a solid thump.

“Too late! I called dibs!” Dean said cheerfully.

“What? No! It doesn’t work that way!” Sam argued, walking back over. “And there’s still a possibility that this is just some new type of ghoul or something.”

“If it’s a ghoul, then the shotgun blast to the head should do it,” Dean said, eying the bloody mess critically. That was the nice thing about ghouls. Severe head trauma and decapitation were pretty simple kills.

“So, we’re done?” Sam asked hopefully.

“Nope,” Dean said, shaking his head. He walked over to the Impala and took a seat on the truck. “Now we wait and either wait for the flies or for round three.”

Sam sighed and leaned against the nearby phone pole. “Great,” he said sourly. And here he'd forgotten to bring a book.


	6. Don't Fear the Reaper

Something was different this time. Death was supposed to mean numbness—that beautiful nothing where she didn’t exist and didn’t have to think or feel. She’d had it for a moment and now suddenly she was standing over her own body. This was… new.

And terrifying.

There was the distinct sound of a bag of chips being opened behind her. She jumped and nearly stumbled through one of the men having a stare down with her corpse. “Jesus Christ!” she exclaimed, grabbing her chest. If she’d been her body, that probably would have scared her to death.

“Frito?” asked the gaunt faced man in black, extending the bag towards her. He looked… vaguely irritated. Like a funeral director who’d just been told someone had thrown up in a casket. He didn’t wait for her to accept, however; he popped a chip in his mouth and crunched loudly for a moment. Then he spoke.

“You are like a yo-yo with too many strings,” he said.

The dead woman stared at him, trying to figure out what was going on. “If you’re my spirit animal, then you are hella ugly,” she stated. She didn’t want to have creepy men in suits invaded the brief respite of being dead to read her fortune cookies out of Frito bags. She wanted it all to stop.

He gave a hard exhale that was probably the closest to a laugh he’d ever given. “Charming,” he said. “Listen to me very carefully, girl,” he ordered, pulling out a chip and pointing it at her. “You’ll be going back into your body in a moment. Due to your situation, I’m not allowed to reap your soul and give you the permanent peace you so desperately desire.” He took a bite, smacking his thin lips slightly.

Her lips parted slightly in realization. Death. With a capital D. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She could only imagine how annoying her constant state of flux must be to him. Dead one minute, alive the next.

“Quiet,” he commanded, starting to close the cellophane bag. “Now, given the number of lives that you’ve lived, waking up is a bit of a disjointed experience, I’d imagine.”

“Understatement of the century, but yeah,” she replied. “I can’t keep track of which me is… me.”

Death gave another sharp exhale of derision. “I told you to be quiet,” he said. “You have very limited time in this realm and I dislike being interrupted. I am going to help you. When you wake up, you will be you and no one else. Just this once,” he added, lifting a scrawny, long finger for emphasis. “And I will require a favor in exchange.”

“Wh-what kind of favor?”

Death smiled, like a heron eying a fat frog ready for eating, and offered her a chip.

 

Sam didn’t realize he’d been nodding off until he jerked awake again. They had literally been standing on the side of the road for almost an hour watching the body. Dean still seemed bright eyed and wide awake, though; the older Winchester body had a look like he was daring it to sit up again. Sam wasn’t sure what they’d do if it did; they’d already shot it, sprinkled it with Holy Water, salt, the whole shebang. Lighting it on fire was the next step, he supposed drowsily as he rested his head against the phone pole he’d been leaning on.

“Sam!”

Sam’s eyes opened again just in time to see the body roll onto its side and curl up with a faint whimper. Sam glanced at his brother, wanting to know if this was where they broke out the matches.

Dean gave a shrug and walked over to the body, nudging it slightly with his toe. This prompted a yell—no, a howl—and the dead woman sat up, face contorting as the skin and sinew regrew. She was breathing heavily, eyes darting about wildly. Then with a small noise, she seemed to collapse in on herself, shaking and covering her head protectively.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Dean stated, giving the shotgun a pump for emphasis. The noise made the dead girl cringe. Sam frowned. This didn’t exactly seem like a predator’s behavior.

“C-can’t,” was the whispered, somewhat answer. The dead young woman’s palm slapped the pavement, accompanied by the distinct sound of someone biting their lip so not to scream. “God. The face always hurts.” The words were becoming clearer as the healing continued.

“So,” Sam said, not sure if or how he should respond to that comment. “Mind telling us what you are?”

“Right now?” the dead girl asked, voice somewhat raspy. She hacked and spat up a buckshot pellet. She stared at it and then sat back. Her face was the exact same as both the waitress who’d been eaten by the vampire baby and girl they’d saved from the wendigo, Sam had to admit. Well, aside from the few patches that were still healing.

“Yeah, right now,” Dean said, eyes narrowing. “Unless you want to be spitting up more buckshot.”

“Message for you from Lord Death,” the young woman said, gripping her head in her hands like it would fall off if she didn’t. “There’s a man named Faustus in Boston. He’s going to do something bad. You need to stop him.”

Sam and Dean both looked at each other. It was official. There was freaky shit going on again. But there was no way to tell if she was actually referring to the Death they both knew and respected with a hint of bladder squeezing terror or just something entity claiming to be death.

“We’ll look into it,” Sam said dryly. “Now, mind telling us why you keep following us?”

She shook her head. “Not following you,” she answered. “I keep dying. Over. And over. And over. Annabelle’s just being creative,” she said with a tired laugh. “Suffer and die. Suffer and die,” she repeated bitterly, rubbing her eyes. “She’s going to feed me to every monster she can think of and doesn’t care if the great Winchester brothers know about it.”

“Annabelle being the witch we met in the hotel who got the guy to summon the demon?” Dean asked, wanting to make sure that he understood what she was saying.

“Oh, you met her?” the young woman asked with a humorless smile. “Yeah. Guess who was the human sacrifice for that ritual. Meeeeee!” she said, throwing her arms in a sarcastic display of enthusiasm. “Smother me with thoughts and memories that aren’t mine so I always walk right into whatever horrible death awaits!” she said and flopped onto her back, staring up at the night sky.

Sam looked at his brother. This chick was obviously nuts. The question was whether it was the dangerous type of crazy that required killing or just the kind where you drop them off at the mental hospital and never speak of it again.

“And then she brings you back,” Dean concluded. “It sounds like Hell.”

Oh no, Sam thought. Hell with a capital ‘h’. Nothing good ever happened when Dean mentioned Hell.

The girl sighed. “And then she brings me back,” she echoed. “It is hell. Do me a favor and back over me before you leave for Boston. If I’m dead for a little while, it’ll be quiet, at least.”

“What did you say your name was?” Dean asked.

Oh no, Sam quietly pleaded. Please no.

“Melissa,” the girl said. “Why?”

Sam suddenly found the shotgun in his hands and there was a shriek as Dean scooped the once dead girl off the bloody concrete. “Dean!” Sam exclaimed, horrified at his brother’s behavior as the elder Winchester walked back towards the Impala.

Dean dropped the young woman in the backseat and she scurried to the far corner, eying him warily. “Relax, alright?” he ordered. “We’re not going to hurt you.” This prompted a slightly hysterical laugh, indicating his words didn’t have quite the reassuring affect he’d wanted. Dean sighed and shut the car door, turning to find his brother gaping at him. “What?” he asked defensively.

“So, that’s it? We’re just going to take the clearly cuckoo undead girl with us?” Sam asked. This was not happening. For one thing, they didn’t know for certain she was telling the truth about anything. Sam had seen infomercials with potentially more credibility.

“Got a problem, Sammy?” Dean said, jaw taking on a stubborn set. “I don’t know about you, but I want more answers. Only way we’ll get them is if we take Missy—”

“It’s Melissa!” came the call from the back seat.

“—with us,” Dean finished, opening the driver’s side door. “Now, get in. We’ve got a long drive to Boston.”

Sam exhaled sharply. This couldn't end well, he reflected as he walked to the passenger's side and got in. 

In the back seat of the Impala, the young woman named Melissa argued with her selves. They were Hunters. They couldn't be trusted. But they wanted to help. But they would kill her. Men like them always killed her in the end. Maybe these were different. Unlikely. After all--

She shuddered, shoving the multitude of voices to the back of her mind. This was going to be a long car ride.


End file.
